polhol 💔🐴 land

Noriaki Kakyoin

Right.

So I know I said I was ready to draw more this year. I meant it. Mainly because my workplace gave me an understudy, a good friend that I had known from another department 3 years ago, to take over a third of my work. He trained under me since November last year. By January, he was mostly on his own and I had felt my workload lightened a little by January. Hence, why I thought I'd have more me time to spend on drawing.

My friend passed away on April.

And, as workplaces often do, the workload was returned to me.

Amid the sudden shift in workload burden and the shock of losing a colleague, the company started to berate my performance even if I had tried my best to juggle everything. It came to a point that the company felt a little hostile. Word was that the company might get me to take tests and exams (that I have to pay for myself) to prove that I am worth the salary I'm getting, and if not I'd risk getting it cut with no bonuses next year.

I got a little depressed since April. Fought it as best as I could until end of July, when my youngest brother graduated, a good thing that came out from every hardship in the past 6-7 years of helping him pay for his studies. My family got into quite the debt, but we're surviving. I'm surviving. Now he's in the midst of getting a job, and I think he might get one by September.

This lifted weight also made me to plan to quit my job and maybe get back to studying again. Idk I just love studying.

I guess that burden on my shoulders had lightened a bit, hence why I got to draw something today. I hope this would go on. Here's to better days!

Also, happy summer! Drink loads, everyone; summer ain't a joke this year.

It's almost the end of summer, but still summer anyway. ♥

Latest merch (official and fanmade) haul!

Official merchs are mostly Polnareff. Stickers of the gang, the purple and orange PolPol and the three PolPol + Jotaro and Hol Horse photocards are from the Sushiro Japan collab.

With that red Hol trading card and the Hol keychain, I can safely say I'm about 85% done collecting merchs of the cowboy. I know I'm missing a few things like his official merch hat, some rare old badges, standees, shirts and a silly Thoth-Hol plushie. And I heard there's more of him coming soon.

Fanmade merchs are mostly made from well-known Hol Horse fanartists. I got them from pixiv's marketplace Booth. The HolPol doujin, I can't remember from which shop, but idc...BC IT'S THE ONE AND ONLY HOLPOL FANBOOK IN EXISTENCE! I'm so, so happy to finally own a copy! 💕

As I said before, I don't mind. The longer time you give the animators to animate, the better it will be. Dorohedoro is a great example of that...6 years between, bruh, yet we get weeklies and top-notch animation by the end of the day.

I have this JoJo AU for some time now. Idk how will it fair with the many aus already established by other fans, or if I would expand it beyond just this post...but it'll be a shame not to share it.

I call this the PODIUM BOYS AU

Based on Dio always wanting to be No 1, Hol saying No 2 is better and Kira keeping himself mellow at No 3. Hence.

In this au, they live in the same flat, attending the same college. I made Dio genderfluid and bi in this au, he's loud and often had beef with a collegemate (Jonathan, naturally). He majored in performative arts, spills tea like a hand sanitizer dispenser and works out often in the gym. He loves to annoy Hol but respects Kira in a way.

Hol is pan but is in a relationship with Polnareff. He's very laidback to a point everyone - including his bf - thought he was lazy. But he scored his exams well, and majored in an engineering course. He put on whatever clothes he had and never cared if they were mismatched. He also can't cook to save his life, so Dio and Kira made sure he stayed out of the kitchen.

Kira is, by far, straight...maybe curious. He's the unintentional mother of the three. He cooked for everyone, cleaned the flat, and really just put up with any shenanigans going on. He majored in accounting and he barely stand out as a student. He likes cats. Dio and Hol were scared of him sometimes.

More PolPol trading cards!

And now I can't stop comparing their animation styles. Don't get me wrong, I think David Productions did well with all the JoJo seasons...but I was expecting the animation game to be greater with SBR, since it is Araki's peak JoJo chapter, the one he actually wanted to serialise from the very beginning, the one that incorporated both his love for cowboys and music.

Then Mappa came up with the animation for Dorohedoro, which, mind you, is not easy to animate because unlike JoJo, which gives you an action movement panel by panel, Dorohedoro's actions can be compressed to only one panel (like 2-3 things happening in one shot). And Mappa animators nailed it. The filling-in-the-blanks probably gave the animators more liberty, but JoJo could have had the same approach too.

That said, while rearranging the cards (+ stickers and postcards), I took the liberty to photograph them.

All photos under the cut :)

(be warned, it's mostly Hol Horse and Polnareff...)